Archibald Robertson’s view up Wall Street preserves a view at the right of New York’s second City Hall at the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets after its transformation into Federal Hall by Major Pierre-Charles L’Enfant. It became the exclusive site of the new federal government, serving as the first capitol building (1789‹0). On its balcony, George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States. Demolished in 1812, it was also the first home of the New-York Historical Society (1804‰9). “View up Wall Street with City Hall [Federal Hall] and Trinity Church, New York City,†Archibald Robertson, circa 1798, watercolor, black ink and graphite on paper; 8½ by 11¼ inches. Gift of Sophia Minton, granddaughter of David Grim.

Distinguished as the first institution in America to establish a collection of watercolors and drawings with its beginnings in the early 1800s, the New-York Historical Society (NYHS) houses an extraordinary trove of some 8,500 original works on paper. While some of the works have previously been on display in a variety of exhibitions pertaining to related themes, the collection itself has never before been the subject of a comprehensive exhibition.

The society has seen fit to correct that situation with a wide ranging exploration of the historically important watercolor and drawings collection, and has subsequently mounted the landmark exhibition, “Drawn By New York: Six Centuries of Watercolors and Drawings at the New-York Historical Society.”

The exhibition features 190 remarkable works that were carefully culled from the NYHS collection, many on public display for the first time. Featured watercolors and drawings in the exhibition follow a timeline of sorts, beginning with a stunning selection of Sixteenth Century works and ending with a powerful display of contemporary images †some of which relate to 9/11. The exhibition, on view through January 7, affords a rare glimpse into the extensive depth and range of the society’s holdings.

Founded in 1804, NYHS operates a museum and library that house collections spanning four centuries and documenting American historical artifacts, art and other materials that reflect the impact and influences that New York City and the state had on the history of the United States. NYHS is widely acknowledged as a preeminent educational and research institution, home to the nation’s oldest museum and one of the nation’s most distinguished independent research libraries.

James Bard and his twin brother, John, were born into a modest laborer’s family in Manhattan. The Bard brothers grew up near the steamboat piers on the Hudson River, where they watched the passing ships and together developed an interest in their depiction. “Steamboat Sylvan Dell,†circa 1872‱886, James Bard, gouache, watercolor, pastel, graphite and metallic pigment on paper laid on board, 24 3/8 by 39 inches.

NYHS was founded November 20, 1804, primarily due to the efforts of John Pintard, an influential New Yorker who was associated with the Academy of Fine Arts. Pintard was also an alderman for the city of New York and a founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The society’s watercolor and drawings collection began innocently enough in 1816 with the donation of two pastel drawings that depicted “eminent American men and were thus deemed documentary records of historical significance,” stated Dr Roberta J.M. Olson, curator of drawings at NYHS and the curator of the e xhibition, in the foreword of the accompanying catalog. “Having one’s portrait taken was an index of personal prosperity and also signaled a more established country,” she continued.

Just nine years after its founding, a NYHS catalog from 1813 reveals that the collections had soared in size to include 4,265 books, 234 volumes of historically significant US documents, 119 almanacs, 130 different newspapers, 134 maps and 30 assorted views, several oil portraits and 38 engraved portraits.

The devastating Great Fire of 1835 broke out on December 16, 1835, and raged for more than 15 hours on the coldest day in 36 years (17 degrees below zero) when water sources froze. Starting in a dry-goods store, the Great Fire was the most disastrous in the city’s history. Nicolino Calyo made a specialty of gouaches of the fire and its diurnal aftermath. Having exported from Naples the technique for capturing the spectacular light effects of Vesuvius, he based these gouaches on sketches made on the spot. Nicolino Calyo, “The Great Fire of 1835: View of New York City Taken from Brooklyn Heights on the Same Evening of the Fire,†circa 1835, gouache on heavy paper, laid on Japanese paper, wrapped over board; 20 1/8 by 27 3/16 inches.

It was not until 1855 that the first landscape drawing was added to the collection, a graphite on paper panoramic view of the Hudson River town of Kingston by the Eighteenth Century artist J. Wilkie, “that augured the collection’s emerging strengths,” according to Olson.

“‘Drawn By New York’ offers a rare opportunity to rediscover America through the kaleidoscopic lens of this extraordinary collection,” noted Olson. “Since many of the outstanding watercolors and drawings were executed before the advent of photography, they not only document lost buildings, customs and landscapes, but also preserve images of significant events and individuals who played vital roles in the history of the nation and the city.”

The NYHS collections have grown significantly over the past two centuries, and today they contain an impressive assortment of historical “documents” that number in excess of 4.5 million.

As the collections continued to expand, it became necessary for additional specialized departments to be incorporated into NYHS so that proper attention could be devoted to each individual area of the collections. In 1989, a genre specific art department was formed and the first curator selected was Annette Blaugrund, who soon afterwards was named the Andrew W. Mellon curator of paintings, drawings and sculpture. Blaugrund succeeded in bringing to light the importance of the collections and was also successful in capturing the attention of an appreciative audience. A curator specifically assigned to drawings was appointed in 2000.

Among the earliest views of New York City is one of a group of early drawings and prints depicting the colonial city at the tip of Manhattan. Attributed to Laurens Block, “Novum Amsterodamum (New Amsterdam, New Netherlands),†1650, watercolor and brown and black ink over black chalk on ivory paper, laid on four other layered sheets; 51 3/16 by 19 1/16 inches. Gift of C.E. Detmold.

Mainstream works by celebrated artists such as John James Audubon, Albert Bierstadt, George Catlin, Asher B. Durand, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios and John Singer Sargent are included in the exhibition. Fascinating works by lesser-known figures, such as the Baroness Hyde de Neuville, whose elegant watercolor sheets help preserve the people and landscapes of early Nineteenth Century America, are also included, as well as drawings by David Cusick, one of the first known artists in United States to document the Native American.

The exhibition spans six centuries, starting with a selection of rare mid-Sixteenth Century watercolors of North American birds †precursors of the work of Audubon †such as the watercolor, gouache, black ink and lead pigment on ivory paper titled “Male Ring-Neck Pheasant” by Phasianus Colchicus, circa 1554‱565, and culminating with the powerful and somber contemporary representations of the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, depicted in a series of pastels by Donna Levinstone.

The cornerstone of the NYHS collection is certainly the large group of watercolors by John James Audubon that was acquired in 1861 from the artist’s widow. The purchase included 434 original preparatory watercolors produced for Audubon’s The Birds of America folio that was engraved by Robert Havell Jr. It is now regarded by many as the most colorful and finest folio edition ever produced.

Augmented by a 1966 donation, the Audubon set was completed and NYHS now owns all of Audubon’s 435 known extant original watercolors, making it the largest repository of his works.

This dazzling watercolor vividly records the now-extinct Carolina parakeet. It is one of the 435 original watercolors preparatory for John James Audubon’s The Birds of America (1827″8), purchased directly from the artist’s widow Lucy Bakewell Audubon. John James Audubon, “Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinenis) Study for Havell plate 26,†circa 1825, watercolor, graphite, pastel, gouache and black ink on paper, laid on board, 29¾ by 21¼ inches.

A limited number of works from the colonial and Revolutionary periods are housed in the collection. Claiming pride of place in the collection as the earliest known view of New York City, then New Amsterdam, is a watercolor attributed to Laurens Block titled “Novum Amsterodamum,” circa 1650. While it has been argued in the past as to the accuracy of the watercolor’s depiction, it shows a fort and within the walls the stone church erected in 1642, flanked by the governor’s house on the right and the jail and barracks on the left.

NYHS also houses the largest collection of Durand material in the world, largely due to gifts from the family of the artist. A stockpile of ten sketchbooks, approximately 296 drawings and 110 oil paintings are held by the society, along with such items as the artist’s paint box, easels and his desk. Of note in the exhibition is a graphite on paper self-portrait.

Although the collection is steeped in material representative of Northeastern America, a series of studies of Native Americans from the Western half of the nation “testify to the expansion and maturation of the country,” writes Olson. The 221 original “outline drawings” by George Catlin, recreated between 1866 and 1868 from original sketches he made during his travels through the Plains between 1830 and 1836, are highlighted by “Medicine Man (Blackfoot)” a graphite and black ink on prepared card. These drawings, officially known as his “Outlines of North American Indians,” were intended by the artist to serve as a significant pictorial ethnological record and are now highly regarded by NYHS as ethnographic documentation.

Early depictions of Manhattan from the NYHS collection serve as important historical records, in many cases considered to be unique depictions of historical sites and buildings. Such is the case with the circa 1798 watercolor, black ink and graphite on paper by Archibald Robertson titled “View up Wall Street with City Hall [Federal Hall] and Trinity Church, New York City.” Robertson’s view depicts the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets and New York’s second City Hall, which had recently been transformed into Federal Hall. The building was the home of the new federal government and the first capitol building. George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States on its balcony and it was also the first home of NYHS from 1804 to 1809. The building was demolished in 1812.

A trio of watercolor vignettes by Joseph Beekman Smith, a study for a lithograph, provides an accurate record of the features of the first Methodist church erected in the United States in 1768, along with two other buildings constructed on the property. Built on John Street in New York City, the church was demolished in 1817 and replaced that same year with another structure, which was replaced again in 1841.

The formation of the historical society’s collection over two centuries also explores the impact of patronage and collecting in New York and the United States. “Through the generosity of donors, coupled with the vision of trustees and staff †men of erudition such as collectors, merchants, civil leaders and antiquarians †drawings continued to be acquired organically along with paintings and prints as an integral part of a two-dimensional world collected for the historical evidence it contained,” writes Olson in the exhibition catalog.

Born to Quaker parents, Howard Pyle became one of the most influential American illustrators. Pyle’s creative abilities were encouraged by his mother, who exposed him to literature and influential British periodicals. At 16, he entered the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, studying for three years under Franz Van der Weilen. “Hamilton Addresses the Mob: Study for the Illustration in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine,†Howard Pyle, 1884, watercolor, black ink and gouache on card, 13½ by 10 inches. Gift of George Zabriskie.

The 1984 gift from Dr Egon Nuestadt is a significant example of the patronage that has been so essential to the NYHS collections. While his donation was primarily made up of three-dimensional items †133 leaded glass lamps from Tiffany Studios †the collection also included four watercolors, one by Louis Comfort Tiffany himself. A watercolor, gouache and Conté crayon on paper depicting a wonderful tropical sunset scene is on view. It is inscribed, “A suggestion for window, Bunnell Studio, Carnegie Hall, Cleveland, O., Ecclesiastical Dept., Tiffany Studios, New York City.”

The NYHS collections also include a selection of illustrative art with the inclusion in the exhibition of Howard Pyle’s poignant illustration “Hamilton Addressing the Mob: Study for the Illustration in Harper’s Monthly Magazine ” from October 1884.

Ashcan School artists, including William Glackens and Robert Henri, are featured in the exhibition, as well as Abstract Expressionists, such as Oscar Bluemner, who is represented with two seminal works in the collection.

With the various collections always expanding, the mission at NYHS has evolved over the years. While the formative and early initiatives that guided the collecting narrowed over the past century to place more of an emphasis on metropolitan New York, it has today come full circle. NYHS has returned to the original goals set forth in 1804 of assembling “documents, artifacts and artworks illustrative of the development of the United States and New York state” and keeping a watchful eye open for important contemporary art.

Three studies of the shifting surface of the Hudson River by contemporary artist Eve Aschheim, their recent acquisition made possible by a grant from the Henry Luce III Foundation, “mark a return to the spirit of the Nineteenth Century, when the society was alert to contemporary art, Janus-like looking to the past and pointing the way to the future,” states Olson.

The painter, printmaker and watercolorist Lionel Samson Reiss began his career like so many other American artists as a designer and illustrator. After emigrating to the United States with his parents in 1899, Reiss studied at the Art Students League under George Bellows and worked as an illustrator for Universal Pictures. Later working for Goldwyn Picture Corporation and as an art director for the advertising agency Hanf-Metzinger, Reiss left his lucrative job in 1936 to pursue a career in fine art. “Going Home, Near Bloomingdale’s at the 59th Street Elevated Station, New York City,†circa 1946, Lionel Samson Reiss, watercolor, black ink and graphite on watercolor paper, 19 by 25 5/8 inches.

While the exhibition is worth the price of admission alone, the Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture, occupying the fourth floor of NYHS, should not be overlooked. It is a repository containing a huge selection of materials, such as the 24 silhouettes by the celebrated French artist Augustin Edouart that are displayed there alongside countless other original works on paper.

“Drawn By New York” is accompanied by the New-York Historical Society’s first catalog of its collection of watercolors and drawings, bearing the same title. The 450-page, fully illustrated book, published by the New-York Historical Society in association with D Giles Limited, features an interpretive essay by Olson and extensive entries for each work in the exhibition. It is available from the NYHS Museum store for $85 (hardbound) and $45 (softbound).

The exhibition will travel to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., on view from August 14 through November 1, and to the Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio, from November 20, 2009 through January 17, 2010.

The New-York Historical Society is at 170 Central Park West. For information, www.nyhistory.org or 212-873-3400.